Results tagged “cheating”

Yesterday morning, a 43-year-old man was found stabbed to death on Beachwood Avenue in the New Brighton section of Staten Island and now police know why: Apparently James Braddox told girlfriend Yolanda McNeil-Moody—with whom he has two teenage children— that he got another woman pregnant. The Staten Island Advance reports that Braddox and McNeil-Moody got into an argument: "He then went to his car, where he sat with his teenage son, Jamani to explain the situation to him...That's when, investigators believe, Ms. McNeil-Moody came outside and either thrust or threw the knife at Braddox, piercing his chest, the source said." Braddox tried to drive to the hospital but crashed into a tree a block away; the knife was found across the street from their home. McNeil-Moody was charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon—murder or manslaughter charges are pending the ME's report.

Administrators at Stuyvesant High School have been using handheld metal detectors on students—not to detect weapons but to disarm cheaters who might use their mobile devices during a test. Teens at the elite public school in lower Manhattan were outraged when the wands were introduced recently during two weeks of AP testing. One student tells the Post, "To wand students is absurd. If they can't tell kids are using a cellphone to cheat, it's their own fault. Next thing, we're going to have to take our shoes off like we're going through the airport." And then they'll be forced to take tests naked like they're cutting coke for some paranoid drug lord! Another student also argues that "wanding is pointless. You can cheat in so many other ways." Principal Stanley Teitel declined to comment, but Dr. Teddi Fishman, director of the Center for Academic Integrity, says the tactic is counterproductive, because it creates "an adversarial relationship where students try to get away with [cheating] and we try to stop them... Anything that can be cheated on easily is usually too simplistic a test."

Cramster.com tells the NY Post that Columbia University is the top school where its users hail from (if they're going by columbia.edu addresses). CEO Aaron Hawker bragged, "Not only do we have the most users [at Columbia], but they are the most active." The subscription site is a "virtual study hall" but the Post points out that there are also "hundreds of textbooks with answers included" (apparently posted in spite of Cramster's anti-cheating policy). Columbia topped Ohio State, LSU, the University of Southern California and UCLA; one student sang Cramster's praises, "It's not cheating, it's awesome. Those who rely on it [for answers] get screwed. It's to help students who want to learn, and it helped me." As for other NY-area schools, Cramster says SUNY-Stony Brook is #2, NYU is #3, Yeshiva University is #4 and St. John's is #5. Related: Cramster says that Columbia is a supercomputer.

Besides criminal charges and the Giants' offense being less-than-stellar, the NY Post delves into another possible problem from Plaxico Burress and Antonio Pierce's night on the town: Surveillance video showing Pierce getting cozy with a woman who does not seem to be his wife. Before Burress and Pierce went to the LQ nightclub (where Burress accidentally shot himself with his own gun when it fell down his track pants), the pair went to strip club Head Quarters. The Post describes the video, "As she pulls away, he slides his paw across her breast, briefly grabs and tosses her hair, and then slides his hand down to briefly stroke her curvy bottom." Pierce was married to Joyce Maldonado, who is a model and sportscaster for the Mets, earlier this year; they are a pretty gorgeous couple.

With more focus being put on public schools improving standardized test scores, should we be surprised that a high school administrator is accused of falsifying answers? Department of Education investigators say that High School for Contemporary Arts Assistant Principal Ruth Ralston "brazenly erased 1,000 wrong answers on her students' algebra Regents exams and swapped them for the correct responses," according to the Post." The NY Times reports someone noticed that "1,013 multiple-choice answers had been erased and changed — in 94 percent of the cases, from incorrect to correct." Suspicion fell on Ralston, who held the uncorrected exams after students took them and before they were graded. She had also been told her $109K/year job might be eliminated due to budget cuts--"while a high passing rate on the exam might not save her job, 'it could help her search for a new position.'" (The Post says she's still working there three days a week.)

Officials at Stuyvesant High School told parents that they want to install metal detectors, but not because of concern that students are bringing weapons to school. The prestigious public high school simply wants to catch students who are breaking the Department of Education's ban on cellphones and are using them to text each other test answers. Principal Stanley Teitel said that the scanners would hopefully be installed during finals week in January. In the past, students at high schools that have metal detectors installed to combat them from bringing weapons in have griped about having their cell phones taken away, while students magnet schools like Stuyvesant can sneak them in unchallenged.

On the Apple discussion boards, a woman from NJ asked other users if iPhone photos automatically attach themselves to email, after she "found a raunchy picture" her husband sent to a woman via his iPhone: "He admitted that he took the picture but says that he never sent it to anyone. He claims that he went to the Genius Bar at the local Apple store and they told him that it is an i-phone glitch." Most users smell a rat ("this is not an issue with the iPhone so the glitch is probably with your husband.") and wonder about the picture itself. In the midst of the exchange, the aggrieved wife adds, "Well, if you must know ... it was a close-up shot of him pleasuring himself taken at the exact moment of maximum pleasure... Add that picture to the late night phone calls and some other miscellaneous texts and e-mails that I found ... and let's just say that my atty is working on the divorce complaint. Nonetheless, I wanted to remain open to the possibility that it was all some big mistake (I think that he is the big mistake) and thank everyone who provided input on this discussion."

The Post reports a woman is suing her husband for $25 million, claiming that the sexual transmitted diseases she has now are the result of his indiscretions. Stephanie Lerner says after being infected with "several severe incurable strains of the human papilloma virus," she's had a number of operations and now is in constant pain She says her venture capitalist husband Mark first give her trichomoniasis in 1996 (he admitted to cheating then); when she learned about her HPV in 2005, he apparently "admitted to her and their marriage counselor that he'd continued having unprotected sex with hookers in Asia, as well as with a mistress in New York." He also allegedly said, "I wish you would just die already" when she was ill. The two are reportedly in the middle of a divorce.

The OK! Magazine article which points a judging finger at Madonna and A-Rod's "friendship" is now in print and online (well, partially) for all of those suspect of the pals.

Could Yankee and lover of "well-toned, muscular" women, A-Rod, be the cause of the alleged marital problems between Madonna and Guy Ritchie? Radar reports that the issue of OK! Magazine hitting newsstands tomorrow claims the two are having an affair. The pair did go to the same gym last year and share a manager, after all; further proof in the article, Radar assumes, will be given through various "close friends."

The principal of a charter school located within the building that also houses the Dept. of Education has stepped down amid accusations that she was doctoring standardized test scores.